Chapter Text
+
As MI6 operations go, the one codenamed after a medieval stone mansion in a fog-covered Scottish countryside—which was not so metaphorically wiped off the map overnight—carried with it an unusually high amount of guilt and regret.
There was the rookie field agent forced to pull a trigger and ended up shooting her colleague (worse, a legend), and who later chose to forego the field entirely (‘It’s not for everyone’).
There was the young, haughty quartermaster who was very very clever but just a touch too eager to impress and ended up making a big fucking mistake (‘Shit shit shit’) that saw an evil man escape.
There was the older field agent who came back from the dead but not without holes in his body and doubts on his mind. He killed the evil man in the end but not so soon that it counted. (He’s the one who lost everything and the sky.)
Then there was the silver-headed woman who lived as a single letter and liked neither poetry nor regret. Did she suspect that she’d had a hand in shaping the monster (‘Soon your future will be as nonexistent as your past’), did she think she deserved her fate? Well, the answer will never come even if we wait.
Skyfall—done.
+
When Bond eventually resumed active duty after another round of tests and evals, and a political firestorm, for a while, every time Q looked into the older man’s eyes he remembered that moment in which Bond realised before he did that Silva had hacked them. But Q didn't divert his gaze, just typed and typed.
+
Bond played his part more convincingly than ever. Killer on a tightrope, a whisper in his ear and winter in his eyes, all katana-sharp suits and radioactive blue. His humanity in tatters, one suspected that double-oh-seven was attempting to hold it together with elevated brutality and denial of human warmth, which was plainly doing a better job tearing down than stitching up. And there was nothing left to bring him down at the end of that rope.
For all the havoc he was wreaking in all the shadowy corners of the world, to everyone's surprise, his quartermaster beat him in getting pulled into a non-routine meeting with a stern M.
They bumped into each other outside the door to M’s office, Q gave a nod but didn’t pause.
“What’s the matter with him?” Bond asked Moneypenny.
She raised one impeccably shaped eyebrow and said, without something that sounded like mocking.
“You didn’t know? Q hijacked an attack drone from the Ministry of Defense in order to save your sorry arse, 007.”
+
The next time, Q blacked out half of Riga to distract the local police.
And then there’s that phony bomb alert in the UN building before everyone in it, including the heads of three states, had to be evacuated.
Amazing what a single computer could do.
+
Eve found Bond at the shooting range.
“You have got to go talk to Q.”
Bond raised his weapon, bang bang bang, exhaled, and then said with just a hint of a drawl, “Why?”
“He is setting fires to his career by acting recklessly because he’s still consumed by guilt over Silva’s hack-in and believes he’s got M’s blood on his hands.”
“We all have blood on our hands.”
She got into his personal space at this and hissed, “Q isn’t one of us.”
Bond took in her anger and took a breath. “There isn’t anything I can do. He’ll have to come ‘round on his own.”
“He could use some help. I’ve tried but he wouldn’t let me.”
“What makes you think he’d let me?”
“Bond,” here her face softened and her voice went almost gentle, like a doting aunt. “All those things that' got him into trouble? He did them to keep you alive.”
+
It’s past three in the morning, and there’s a shadow in his flat.
Q plopped down his messenger bag on the sofa, not switching on the lights, and insoucianced, “Now I know how she must have felt.”
The shadow offered, “At least you are taking it a lot better than she ever did.”
“I suspect it’s because she knew this was never a good sign.” With that, the lights did come on and Bond blinked.
“To what do I owe the pleasure?”
Bond made an expansive gesture towards Q, encompassing all of him. “You.”
“You’ll have to be clearer than that.”
“Moneypenny thinks you are headed for a crash course.”
“I see. She put you up to this?”
“Practically served me a browbeating.”
“And you agreed because you are frightened of her?”
“Well, she did shoot me once.”
Unexpectedly, Q stiffened. He said, “It wasn’t her fault.”
Bond moved away from the window and towards Q, his eyes glimmering like two moonstones.
“It wasn’t yours, either.”
And Q knew Bond wasn’t talking about Istanbul anymore.
“Here to baby-glove me? A bit rich coming from you, is it not?”
“Q,”
the field agent intoned, his voice low.
“I know what happened to you after Vesper and she was most decidedly not your fault.”
Bond’s eyes turned double-oh-senven-cold but Q couldn't help himself.
“Yes, yes she and Fields and Mathis, and the capture-or-kill order on you, I know all about them. Now why don’t you leave me the fuck alone. I haven’t even murdered anyone.”
And he blinked, once, before finding himself pinned against the wall, his throat wrapped in iron fingers, but he really couldn't help himself now.
“They were touched by your hand, then withered under your feet. You still remember them, do you not? I’m sure they all went gladly.” Q choked out. He didn't know what he’s saying anymore. He felt the fingers tighten.
Good. Now he’s free to do his worst.